Had another training day yesterday, I didn't order her any birds so I let her run for a while at first to find a quail that had escaped the box, and Tessa just didn't seem very "together" and she didn't find it.

We then tagged along with the NA pups and watched them hunt up theirs. I thought I would use this to practice the whoa and steady her a bit. I had to keep her on a check cord and that was awful, she got so excited at every gunshot that any attempt to steady her even for a few seconds was unsuccessful. So no whoa, no heeling, just jumping, whining pulling.

So we proceed to the pond. Things went well at first, she retrieved every dummy and she just loves to swim. Then other dogs showed up and this is what happened:

I throw a dummy, send her out, she goes all the way to it, then leaves it floating and goes straight for another dog's dummy, even if at quite a distance away, brings that one back halfway, abandons it, goes for the next dog's dummy etc...A party crasher so to speak. Back on the check cord she went here as well so that the others could do their work.

1. What's going on?

2. What do I do about it? I have not started the force fetch. Until I do and until she's got it down, how do I do water work with her? It's difficult to enforce a retrieve when stuff is floating 60 feet out.

Overall, she was a horrible brat yesterday, in the field, at home and later on in the city, and also today in the park, so I am chalking it up to a really bad adolescence phase, in addition to always getting soooo reved up about hunting.

It's very clear for all that saw her that she's got a ton of desire, but the desire to please was not there at all yesterday. She also seems to get so excited that she gets in the way of herself (she was like that as a pup).

Any thoughts?

Competition does interesting things to dogs. I am chuckling as I write this because I have seen this behavior in my dogs. Ringo does the pulling, whining, jumping thing with gunshots too.

For the water retrieve problem, I think you need more reps without distractions. Tessa is not ready for the distraction overload she got at the field day. I see the same behavior in obedience training with dogs. It is the competition. Belle and Halo are both mature enough and have done the retrieves long enough they will ignore the other dogs and bumpers and go out for theirs. I can also send them after a bumper that has been forgotten or left by another dog. Ringo is still not proofed enough. He will go after another dogs bumper if he thinks he can. You want to be careful in a correction in this scenario because the dog will only think you are correcting for getting a bumper. Wasn't that what you wanted? She will not discriminate between my bumper and another dogs bumper. So, if you correct this you may set her back in her training. She just isn't ready to work with the distraction of other dogs and bumpers so near. More solo reps for her. You might also take her to the pond on a leash and let her watch other dogs get bumpers. If she gets excited and wants to go after their bumper, tell her leave it. If you haven't taught the leave it command, it is a great thing to teach and would be helpful in a multitude of scenarios this one included. Another thing that might help is train with a friend. Throw the bumper for the other dog and keep Tessa on a leash. Send the other dog. Then swap out and send Tessa. When it isn't Tessa's turn she has to wait quietly. Eventually Tessa will go after her toy and bring it back to you and ignore the others. I do that with Belle and Halo. Ringo just wants to get all the bumpers. You know you can't put more than two bumpers in a shorthair mouth. How frustrating is that?

Another possible solution if you have no one else to train with is the following. Starting with your dog at whoa throw two objects, one at a time starting at 90 degrees from each other. Make one object close and the other far. You choose which object to send your dog for. Suggest you start by sending the dog for the close object first and preferably that is the second object thrown. Send for first retrieve then the second retrieve. At first the dog might go out to pick up the first object and then go for the second without coming back. Or it might veer from the direction of the object you selected for the first retrieve and try to pick up the second first. If the dog veers from the chosen object whoa the dog. Walk out to the dog and heel it back to the start position. Line it up and resend for the retrieve. Once the dog is to the point of handling the close retrieve followed by the long retrieve reverse the order. Send for the long followed by close. Now comes the fun part. Close the angle between the two objects from 90 to 60. Once the dog is good on that, close the angle to 30 degrees. After that close the angle to 0. On this last iteration accept the fact the dog will pick up the close object first. If you get all the way through this start throwing 3 objects. Then 4, 5, etc. My dogs usually break down someplace after 3 objects. This process is not a substitute for training for the chaos of competition. However it does sharpen the dog’s attention on you and what you want the dog to do, thus helping get it through that chaos of competition more easily.

So, was the day worth it: Yes, you learned something, actually more than one thing. So, don't feel bad. Everyone makes mistakes. That is one of the ways you learn. Now when something like this happens to me, I first make sure I end on a positive with the dog. Even if it is something so basic as telling my dog to sit. I want us both ending on a good note. Second, I take a hard look at my training and then take some steps backwards to where we last were successful. I then make corrections to my program to fix the problem and work my way slowly (and I mean slowly) to where I want to be. Sometimes when something like this happens it takes a while to work back to where you want to be, but I have found that in the end my dog and I are better for the step backward.

With regard to the pinch collar in the field, when I am training I use one and so does my trainer. Not the standard one that most people think of, but one that looks more like a slip collar. It gives me control while I have my dog on leash and I can slip it off when I am doing something off leash. Here is a link:

Good luck and remember this kind of thing happens to all of us. I had to work through an issue with the long sit and down in Open Obedience with Halo that took me three months to fix. More recently I have been working on the drop on recall. I went back and taught her the folding down so I went way back to the beginning. It confused her a little so we went really slow and worked the pieces. I just started putting them all together last week and she is doing wonderfully. Ready to now start proofing. The best thing was someone saw her drop on recall and commented about how nice it looked. I am also getting her to drop on a dime which is also cool.

How old is Tess, and are you trying to seriously steady her on birds?

Brenda, she is 13 months. Up until now she was allowed to search, point, chase birds at heart's content during our training days (once a month), but now that she is pointing I want to start steadying her. Since she has a very good whoa in the yard and around town even under distractions, I thought I would just practice it out in the field not on birds that day, but under the distraction of, well, the field, and guns other dogs further in the distance.

It may be time to buy ourselves a private training session with a bird dog trainer...

She sounds very ready for training. Steadying is best done on repetitions at least 3 days a week.  We start on the auto launchers and pigeons until standing reliably (usually takes around a month) Then they are started on quail and taught they are the same and they should handle them the same. I do not shoot a bird until they are reliable on quail.